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What is the meaning of the word Hierarchy?

I have seen it says it means persons having authority but I am looking at Maslow's hierarchy chart and I just don't get how persons having authority is defined as his chart is showing. Thanks in advance!

Public Comments

1. Hierarchy is the system of ranking, particularly in the amount of influence a person has, amonst a group of people. For example, the president is at the top of the hierarchy for the U.S. Military.
2. any system of persons or things ranked one above another. this is, I think the best deffinition Maslow's chart, hmmm, don't know about that
3. a body of persons having authority
4. It can mean that, yes. But in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's more in the way of... the lower needs in the pyramid need to be met first, before the higher needs can be satisfied. Once the needs of one level are met, they are then no longer prioritised, as the focus will move higher up onto the next level. Forget about people having authority, it won't apply to the hierarchy of needs.
5. Maslow's hierarchy of needs refers to the needs of an individual, ranging from most personal to general. For instance, the top tier of the hierarchy includes morality, creativity and spontaneity. The level of importance of creativity in an individual may be very important to you, but may also not be that important to me. On the other hand, the last tier includes basic, primary needs such as food, water, shelter.
6. Representations This diagram shows Maslow's hierarchy of needs, represented as a pyramid with the more primitive needs at the bottom.Maslow's hierarchy of needs is often depicted as a pyramid consisting of five levels: the four lower levels are grouped together as being associated with Physiological needs, while the top level is termed growth needs associated with psychological needs. Deficiency needs must be met first. Once these are met, seeking to satisfy growth needs drives personal growth. The higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus when the lower needs in the pyramid are satisfied. Once an individual has moved upwards to the next level, needs in the lower level will no longer be prioritized. If a lower set of needs is no longer being met, the individual will temporarily re-prioritize those needs by focusing attention on the unfulfilled needs, but will not permanently regress to the lower level . For instance, a businessman at the esteem level who is diagnosed with cancer will spend a great deal of time concentrating on his health (physiological needs), but will continue to value his work performance (esteem needs) and will likely return to work during periods of remission. Deficiency needs The first four layers of the pyramid are what Maslow called "deficiency needs" or "D-needs": if they are not met, the body gives no indication of it physically, but the individual feels anxious and tense. The deficiency needs are: survival needs, safety and security, love and belonging, and self-esteem. Physiological needs These are the basic human needs for such things as food, warmth, water, and other body needs. If a person is hungry or thirsty or his body is chemically unbalanced, all of his energies turn toward remedying these deficiencies, and other needs remain inactive. Maslow explains that, "Anyone who attempts to make an emergency picture into a typical one, and who will measure all of man's goals and desires by his behavior during extreme physiological deprivation, is certainly blind to many things. It is quite true that man lives by bread alone — when there is no bread".[1] The physiological needs of the organism (those enabling homeostasis) take first precedence. These consist mainly of (in opposite order of importance): Excretion Eating Drinking Breathing If some needs are not fulfilled, a human's physiological needs take the highest priority. Physiological needs can control thoughts and behaviors, and can cause people to feel sickness, pain, and discomfort. Safety needs With his physical needs relatively satisfied, the individual's safety needs take over and dominate his behavior. These needs have to do with man's yearning for a predictable, orderly world in which injustice and inconsistency are under control, the familiar frequent, and the unfamiliar rare. In the world of work, these safety needs manifest themselves in such things as a preference for job security, grievance procedures for protecting the individual from unilateral authority, savings accounts, insurance policies, and the like. For the most part physiological and safety needs are reasonably well satisfied in the first world. The obvious exceptions, of course, are people outside the mainstream — the poor and the disadvantaged. If frustration has not led to apathy and weakness, such people still struggle to satisfy the basic physiological and safety needs. They are primarily concerned with survival: obtaining adequate food, clothing, shelter, and seeking justice from the dominant societal groups. Safety needs include: Personal security from crime Financial security Health and well-being Safety net against accidents/illness and the adverse impacts Social needs After physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third layer of human needs is social. This psychological aspect of Maslow's hierarchy involves emotionally-based relationships in general, such as: friendship intimacy having a supportive and communicative family Humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance, whether it comes from a large social group (such as clubs, office culture, religious groups, professional organizations, sports teams, gangs) or small social connections (family members, intimate partners, mentors, close colleagues, confidants). They need to love and be loved (sexually and non-sexually) by others. In the absence of these elements, many people become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and depression. This need for belonging can often overcome the physiological and security needs, depending on the strength of the peer pressure. e.g. an anorexic ignores the need to eat and the security of health for a feeling of control and belonging. Esteem needs All humans have a need to be respected, to have self-esteem, self-respect, and to respect others. People need to engage themselves to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution, to feel accepted and self-valued, be it in a profession or hobby. Imbalances at this level can result in low self-esteem, inferiority complexes. People with low self-esteem need respect from others. They may seek fame or glory, which again depends on others. However confidence, competence and achievement only need one person and everyone else is inconsequential to one's own success. It may be noted, however, that many people with low self-esteem will not be able to improve their view of themselves simply by receiving fame, respect, and glory externally, but must first accept themselves internally. Psychological imbalances such as depression can also prevent one from obtaining self-esteem on both levels. Growth needs Though the deficiency needs may be seen as "basic", and can be met and neutralized (i.e. they stop being motivators in one's life), self-actualization and transcendence are "being" or "growth needs" (also termed "B-needs"), i.e. they are enduring motivations or drivers of behavior. Cognitive needs Maslow believed that humans have the need to increase their intelligence and thereby chase knowledge. Cognitive needs are the expression of the natural human need to learn, explore, discover and create to get a better understanding of the world around them. Aesthetic needs Based on Maslow's beliefs, it is stated in the hierarchy that humans need beautiful imagery or something new and aesthetically pleasing to continue up towards Self-Actualization. Humans need to refresh themselves in the presence and beauty of nature while carefully absorbing and observing their surroundings to extract the beauty that the world has to offer. Self-actualization This section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (March 2008) Self-actualization — a concept Maslow attributed to Kurt Goldstein, one of his mentors — is the instinctual need of humans to make the most of their abilities and to strive to be the best they can. Working toward fulfilling our potential, toward becoming all that we are capable of becoming. In Maslow's scheme, the final stage of psychological development comes when the individual feels assured that his physiological, security, affiliation and affection, self-respect, and recognition needs have been satisfied. As these become dormant, he becomes filled with a desire to realize all of his potential for being an effective, creative, mature human being. "What a man can be, he must be"[1], is the way Maslow expresses it. Maslow's need hierarchy is set forth as a general proposition and does not imply that everyone's needs follow the same rigid pattern. For some people, self-esteem seems to be a stronger motivation than love. Mussolini, for example, alienated his closest friends by undertaking reckless military adventures to achieve status as a conqueror. (This example can also be used to illustrate the means-to-an-end dilemma of human motivation. That is, Mussolini may have reached for status as a means to gaining the affection of Adolf Hitler. More will be said about this problem later.) For some people, the need to create is often a stronger motivation than the need for food and safety. Thus, the artist living in poverty is a classic example of reversing the standard hierarchy of needs. Similarly, persons who have suffered hunger or some other deprivation for protracted periods may live happily for the rest of their lives if only they can get enough of what they lacked. In this case, the level of aspiration may have become permanently lowered and the higher-order, less prepotent needs may never become active. There are also cases of people's martyring themselves for causes and suffering all kinds of deprivations, particularly in the physiological, safety, and sometimes social categories, to achieve their goals. Maslow writes the following of self-actualizing people: They embrace the facts and realities of the world (including themselves) rather than denying or avoiding them. They are spontaneous in their ideas and actions. They are creative. They are interested in solving problems; this often includes the problems of others. Solving these problems is often a key focus in their lives. They feel a closeness to other people, and generally appreciate life. They have a system of morality that is fully internalized and independent of external authority. They have discernment and are able to view all things in an objective manner. To further confound the problem of understanding motivation, Maslow points out that motives are not always conscious.[1] In the average person, he believes, they are more often unconscious than conscious — showing the influence on his thinking of Freudian psychologists who h